


A Tale from Year Zero

by rosewindow



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewindow/pseuds/rosewindow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Every detail she could remember about K-Day was burned into her brain now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale from Year Zero

**Author's Note:**

> For the Jaegercon 2013 Gift Exchange; this is a gift for Pandandelion on tumblr.

She didn’t find out about K-Day until the end of school. Looking back, there were some hints, some things that were off about the day, but she didn’t _know_. No one told her.

It started out the way days did. She and her best friend rode their bikes to Summer Saturday School, complaining bitterly the whole way. They sat in the back during Math Team and wrote notes to each other on the worksheet they were supposed to be completing, while up front Steve Brumby answered every single question right in his smug voice. There were classes and clubs, but she couldn’t even tell you what they learned or did. This was supposed to be an opportunity to get ahead, to learn some things that they couldn’t teach or focus on during the regular school year, but she mostly just saw it as a wasted Saturday morning.

The first sign that something wasn’t quite right was during the Newspaper planning meeting. She and her best friend pulled some prank on Martin. It was stupid, and probably deserved a good talking to, but their teacher blew it totally out of proportion. She only once got yelled at at school, and it was on K-Day.

The last part of the day was library hour. She was looking forward to getting some new books and knocking out a few more of the required reading tests before the actual school year started. There was only one computer in the library that could get internet, and one of her favorite science teachers was sitting at it. She waved as she passed by, but he seemed distracted. There were pictures on the screen of a huge monster destroying the Golden Gate Bridge. She made a mental note to look up the movie they were from when she got home.

But she didn’t have to.

Her class gathered around the library tables to hear the announcements before going home for lunch. They were never anything important, so she started scribbling a note to a friend trying to figure out which of the boys she thought were cute.

The intercom screeched to life like it always did.

“Hello students,” said the principal, her voice oddly grave. “Your teachers should be passing around letters right now that you are to take home to your parents.”

She read the letter, but couldn’t comprehend it. An attack on San Francisco? A giant creature? It was like something out of a movie or a comic strip, not real life.

“We will do our best to begin school as usual next week, but we will contact your families if we find it necessary to cancel or delay classes. Have a- have a good day.”

The intercom clicked off with a screech, leaving everyone in silence.

She walked to her bike in a daze, and waited for her best friend, only to find that her parents had already picked her up. She biked home alone on the day the world ended.

\---

Every detail she could remember about that day was burned into her brain now. Everyone had a story - Where were you when the Breach opened? I was supposed to go to California that weekend. My cousin’s husband was San Jose; he heard the roar. My professor canceled lecture and we just watched the news all day. I could see the mushroom cloud from my house.

But she, selfishly, felt like her story was stolen from her.

It was a feeling she got over quickly when the second Kaiju hit Manila six months later. If the Kaiju were going to keep coming, she would get a story eventually.

She’d read a book one time about horror movies reflecting the national traumas of their country of origin. But what did you do when the national trauma was straight out of a horror story?

The answer, apparently, was to look to other stories for the solution.

She had a book of saints that one of her aunts had given her for Christmas 2014. Her aunt had been one of the people who found religion after the Breach opened, though not the Church of the Breach. A few people in town had started going there; it wasn’t quite as big on the east coast. The book didn’t have a saint for every day of the year, but the night before each Saint’s Day, she would read the story of their life and, if the saint was particularly major, admire the image that accompanied it. On a Wednesday night in April, she read the tale of St. George, patron saint of soldiers, and was entranced by the dragon painted by Paolo Uccello.

The next day she felt like she finally got her story.

\---

She was doodling in homeroom the next day, and was pretty pleased with the result. It was a man in armor stabbing a spear into the heart of a great beast. She’d used a blue pen to add in some blood, and a red pen for the knight’s flapping banner.

During first period, the principal announced that all teachers should turn on the news. Her biology teacher flipped on the TV in confusion. The school had decided it was futile to try and keep Kaiju attacks from the students, but they also didn’t usually encourage exposure to them.

The screen was a cacophony of images.

“Is that-” someone started.

“No way!” said the boy behind her excitedly.

“Look at that!”

The news anchors stood by, speechless, as a huge, metal man was dropped from the sky and proceeded to take down the Kaiju they identified as Karloff. The fight was intense, and hard to see accurately, because the news helicopters had to keep ducking out of harm’s way, but the essence of the broadcast was the same. Here was something that could fight the monsters; here was something that could win.

“We’ve just received word from a government spokesperson, that the mechanical marvel that has defeated the Kaiju is known as a ‘Jaeger’ - the German word for hunter,” said the news anchor. “It’s code name is Brawler Yukon, and it is piloted by Lieutenant Sergio D’onofrio and Dr. Caitlin Lightcap.” He broke his practiced persona to grin at the camera. “I think I speak for all of humanity when I say, great fight, guys!”

She ran a finger over the doodle of a knight on her notes. _St. George_ , she thought, _patron saint of Jaegers_.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to explore the start of the Kaiju legend and the start of the Jaeger legend, because the world-building of "Pacific Rim" is absolutely incredible.
> 
> The painting referenced can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon_(Uccello)
> 
> And I can be found on tumblr, also as "rosewindow."


End file.
